You Can Get Paid to Have an Aircraft Carrier

If you have nothing, not even a single cent, in your pocket, you would have had more than enough money to take control of a former United States aircraft carrier. Well, sort of. You could have taken possession of the carrier to scrap it. That’s exactly what ESCO Marine of Brownsville, Texas did. The Navy agreed to pay them one cent for the scrap metal rights to the former USS Saratoga.

This is the second time in the past two years that the Navy has paid a company for scrapping rights for a penny. The former aircraft carrier USS Forrestal’s scrapping rights were obtained by All Star Metals of Brownsville in a contract signed in October, 2013 for a penny as well. That ship was tow